


Drive

by softfeathers



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 02:36:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12355707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softfeathers/pseuds/softfeathers
Summary: Everyone has moments of weakness; this is Emma's.





	Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, to be completely honest, I have no idea when this was meant to be set or what the purpose of my writing it was. I wrote it nearly two years ago and just found it in the drafts of my email, so I figured I'd post it since it grabbed my attention. I know it's short, and I probably won't do anything else with it, but here you go! Hope you all enjoy.

She knows it's wrong to want this. She knows she should want someone — anyone — else, but she doesn't. She can't. She wants Regina Mills, and there isn't a damn thing that she can do about it. 

She forces out a smile for weeks as she watches the woman she loves fall in love with someone else; she knows she's too late. She knows she should have told her earlier, and boy does she wish she had, but she didn't. She couldn't. 

She just wants the woman to be happy, and so she doesn't interfere. She deserves happiness.

But dammit, so does she. 

And so she tries — she really does — to love Killian, but she knows the truth. He loves her much more than she will ever love him, and it isn't fair. Not to her and not to him. Emma knows she can't keep lying to herself anymore. She can't keep lying to Regina, and she can't keep pretending to be in love with a man that she so clearly is _not_  in love with. 

So she tells him. It's hard, and he takes it much worse than she had expected him to, but in the end, he understands, she thinks. 

She doesn't tell Regina, though. She can't. She can't know; Emma won't let her. 

But she needs a break. She needs a break from all of the lying and all of the pretending, so she packs a bag. She tells her parents and her son and even her ex-boyfriend goodbye, but she doesn't say it to Regina. 

She can't. 

It doesn't matter, though. She already knows — she somehow always does. But she doesn't try and stop her, and to Emma, that's a sign. A sign that's she's doing the right thing. 

She's about to cross the town line when Regina appears in front of her fast moving car, but she stops in time. She wishes she could have kept driving, she wishes she didn't have to see the look of hurt and disappointment on the woman's face when she realizes that Emma was really going to leave without saying a word.

She wishes she could have kept driving, but knows she never could have. She can't leave Regina because she is completely and totally in love with her, and when the woman gets out of her way and starts walking over to the passenger side of the car, she doesn't leave like she knows she should. Like she wishes she could. 

No, she stays perfectly still, only moving to turn her head when Regina is finally in the car. She can barely look at her, ashamed that she was so weak, but she forces herself to. She expects her to be angry. She expects her to say that she hates her. She expects the woman to scold her for even considering leaving their son. She expects her to yell, or maybe even hit her — but she doesn't. 

Instead, she says one word, one word that changes everything. In that one word, she tells Emma everything she needs to know. 

She isn't alone. She isn't crazy. She is smart, and beautiful, and dammit she loves her too. 

"Drive," she says, her lips curling upwards into an understanding smile. Regina takes one of Emma's hands off the steering wheel and clasps it in her own, and both women know what they should have known all along. 

This is all that matters.


End file.
